Kansas Soybean Update Featuring Marvin Anliker

(Jamie) Welcome back to the Kansas Soybean Update.
(Greg Akagi) This is the Kansas Soybean Update. It’s brought to you by the Kansas Soybean Commission. The Soybean Checkoff, Progress Powered by Kansas Farmers. Marvin Anliker, President of the Kansas Ag Bankers Division of the Kansas Bankers Association, is joining us. Marvin in this agricultural downturn, very challenging times, but Ag bankers can be a big help during this time. (Marvin Anliker) Well, we most certainly can. They are challenging times but in agriculture today there’s been a lot of good times and a lot of producers have built a lot of equity and balance sheet that we have a lot of things to work with for them. (Greg) One of the biggest things for a producer if there’s any advice is, Don’t procrastinate? (Marvin) Without a doubt. One of the biggest obstacles is if you know you have a problem is to avoid it, not do anything about it. The best thing to do is communicate early and often with your banker. The longer you wait, the worse the situation will get. (Greg) Let’s say you’ve got some of your plans together as far as budget and expenses, insurance, production plan as well. Would it be best to go to your banker to look at that strategy and to lay everything out? (Marvin) If you have a plan put together, that is the first place to start. Go to your banker with a plan and if you need help with that go to him with that as well but communication is key. Go see your banker, sit down with a budget, that’s where it all starts. Figure out where you’re at and what you’re facing and build from there. (Greg) Because there may be advice in there such as restructuring debt or some other things, it is to help that producer in the long run. (Marvin) Every banker’s goal is to see his customers succeed, and there are many ways to handle that. Downturns like this, one of the tools is a restructure if there’s a good equity to work with. If cash flow is not working, a restructure that’s stretching it out over a longer period of time will reduce the cash flow requirement and put the operation in a position to make it through the downturn. The goal is to come out on the other side and be able to still be around and be in business when things turn around, and we get to experience the good times again. (Greg) Being a farmer and rancher is hard, but that also means working with your family to take away some of that stress or to de-stress. (Marvin) That is a very good point to bring up because a lot of times, this can become a very emotional time and you don’t take time to step away from it, de-stress, spend some family time and put things in perspective. It can become overwhelming and when you’re completely stressed, overwhelmed with this situation. We don’t make good business decisions in those kinds of conditions. It’s good to step away, reflect, put things in perspective and try to always make your decisions based on objectivity rather than emotion. (Greg) Marvin Anliker, president of the Kansas Ag Bankers Division of the Kansas Bankers Association, has been our guest on Kansas Soybean Update. It’s brought to you by the Kansas Soybean Commission, the Soybean Checkoff, Progress Powered by Kansas Farmers. Learn more at kansassoybeans.org. For Kansas Soybeans, I’m Greg Akagi.
(Jamie) Hope you enjoyed this week’s Kansas Soybean Update! Stay with us after the break for more from Kyle.